Classical Conditioning
by Vestergaard
Summary: When the master says sit, sit. When the bell rings, salivate. Pavlov's theory in motion. General Grievous has a new, unwilling bodyguard, the Jedi master Shaak Ti. WIP.
1. Battle of Hypori

And then...between "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith"...

"Classical Conditioning"  
by Great Materia Hunter Yuffie  
Chapter 1:Battle ofHypori

"O, it is excellent to have a giant's strength, but it is tyrannous to use it like a giant."  
**-William Shakespeare**

The Jedi fought on Hypori, entombed beneath the triangular gravestone of a fallen starship. General Grievous had killed the padawanandK'Kruhk effortlessly, andthen he had gripped Tarr Seirr and Aayla Secura within his clawed extremities and flipped, hurling them into the ceiling as if they were cloth dolls.

Two master Jedi, Shaak Ti and Ki-Adi-Mundi, were left to fight the monstrous cyborg. He let them come, whirling and dodging and dealing blows, the battle made more terrible by the deadpan visage of his death mask. They felt overwhelmed against the towering being that was so much droid and yet guided by a terrible intuitive stratagem that could not be programmed. Grievous was undoubtablya sentient creature, yet stripped of all redeeming qualities and more ruthless than instinct.

With one swift kick, General Grievous disposed of Ki-Adi, sending him twirling into a pile of wreckage. Without pausing, he turned on Shaak Ti, expressionless and soundless except for the shrieking of gears and the drone of twin lightsabers.

Hammer blows fell on her; desperately she blocked, searching for some semblance of sympathy in the cyborg's abhorrent countenance. It was in vain - the cold mask could show no emotions apart from the hatred and anger initially carved into it.

Left, right, left, both at once - the strikes were fiercer now; the general seemed to sense her weakness and pressed forward wordlessly, the blows so hard they made her hands numb. Out of the corner of her vision, she saw movement and a small hope blossomed in her chest.

"Ki-Adi!" she cried desperately.

More sledgehammer strikes on her lightsaber. She saw nothing but whirling blues and greens.

"Hurry!" Frantically, she blocked, the Force guiding her hands and yet only barely keeping up with the lightning general.

A swift chopping stroke and Grievous disarmed her; he pulled back, pistons firing, to strike the final blow.

She flinched, unable to look away.

The general moved, and the world tilted and screeched -

And then a strange thing happened...

General Grievous paused.

The lightsabers hummed an inch away from Shaak Ti's trembling hands. In that split fraction of a second, she didn't know whether Grievous was actually sparing her life or she was somehow protecting herself with the Force. Then, in the next moment, whatever had prevented Grievous from impaling her ricocheted back into Shaak Ti, bashing her into a mound of rock and knocking her insentient.

Before oblivion completely took over dark edges of her mind, she had time for one scattered thought/feeling. With the image of General Grievous' cadaverous mask filling her vision, she felt death and pain and fear...

* * *

She woke; the Force filtered through and wavered sickeningly around everything. 

She felt pain throughout her whole body. Her three striped lekku were sore from their roots to their tips; it hurt to move her eyeballs in their sockets, as if someone had thrown sand in them.

Without opening her eyes, she stretched her uncomfortable fingers and tried to remember the battle on Hypori. It was difficult to concentrate on any one memory. The face of Ki-Adi would blend with the orange sky and helplessness, the pain and fear would melt into a mask like a skull with yellow, hate-filled eyes and a whirring of too-fast lightsabers.

When she realized that they had lost, the blood rushed from her face and her body began to tremble without her consent. Ki-Adi-Mundi...Daakman Barrek...Aayla Secura...K'Kruhk...Tarr Seirr...the padawan, Sha'a Gi...

All gone.

Her eyes opened slowly; she saw gray.

She was on a durasteel platform in the center of a rectangular room. It was very near the floor, like a dais and completely undecorated, lit vaguely from overhead.

There was a blast door to her left. She blinked and the door wavered, as if it were a tree in the wind. She closed her eyes again, confused and disoriented.

Shaak Ti moved her head and finally felt it - a durasteel collar fitted chokingly tight around her neck. Another three were fixed around her hypersensitive lekku. Two pressed against her cheeks; she felt the third push coldly against her spine.

Horrified tears filled her eyes and dread gripped her heart. _What are they? _she thought, distraught. Her hand quickly came up for reconnaissance, to discover the awful truth, whatever it was, but she couldn't touch them, and not for lack of trying. Something was keeping her from investigating the bands; something was shorting out the synapses that sparked the exploration. She would forget what she was doing, or her hand would move in a completely different direction than she'd intended. She couldn't control it.

After a few moments of desperately struggling against herself, her hand slumped to her side and she attempted meditation. Shaak Ti tried to let the Force fill her, to show her the way, to guide her next actions. She tried to feed her fears to the Force like a sacrifice, to give it all her doubts and terror.

Shaak Ti was a powerful Jedi, but as with all the Jedi, she had a weakness. She was full of emotion. Normally, the Jedi used her weakness to her advantage by surrendering her feelings to the altar of the Force, letting it consume her and flow through her like glass.

But something was wrong. The Togruta woman could feel the Force, singing around the edges, but a barrier of haziness separated her from it. The Force wouldn't fill her with its light.

The feelings came rushing back, and she sobbed dryly until she began to hyperventilate. Then, she calmed herself slowly, breathing deliberately through her nose.

She was a prisoner, captured by the droid general. She accepted that as her destiny.

Her Jedi companions were now one with the Force. She accepted that as their destiny.

But if the Force itself was barred to her...if she was forced to feel it, but not to use it...

Suddenly, the lights turned off and she gasped. Shaak Ti felt the interlocking teeth of the door shift and pull apart. Wind rushed into the room and light spilled through the doorway. Her black eyes squinted at the brightly silhouetted figure there, knowing who it would be before he spoke.

"Ah, the Jedi is awake," came the gravelly voice of General Grievous.

Grievous! she said, or tried to say. When she opened her mouth, no sound emerged except for a murmuring breath.

"There is no use trying, Jedi. You have been injected with _tanith_, and you are bound with the mind-control rings developed on Istar. There is no escape."

He said it so matter-of-factly that she knew it was the truth. Her feelings welled up inside her, black and palpable and inexorable. The Jedi's mind was fuzzy, and it suddenly made sense - _tanith_, a drug that numbed the mind, making it impossible to channel the Force.

And the rings...again, her hand twitched to touch them and immediately the rings responded, sending electrical currents through her synapses and changing her thought. Her mind went blank and her hand twitched again.

I will escape! she cried, or tried to cry.

"No escape..." the rings changed her statement subtly. She shook her head, dazed and confused.

"I see the rings are working perfectly," Grievous muttered, almost pleased. "Stand up, Jedi scum. You will follow me."

And he turned, his thick cape fluttering after him, and didn't look to see if she would follow.

Before she knew it she was on her feet, stumbling to keep up with him. Her mind was fluttering to understand what was happening. Magna guards flanked her, silent, unsympathetic and deadly. She caught up and slowed, forcing her hands to her sides. Shaak Ti struggled against the rings, stretching the limits of her control. Nerves in her fingers and face responded, and convulsed, but no more.

They emerged in the main control bay and Shaak Ti realized that they must be on the _Invisible Hand_, General Grievous' flagship. Droids were everywhere. The sound of their mechanical movements permeated the air, but none spoke. It was surreal, as if the ship was a dead thing, with droid-insects clamoring silently in its empty skull. Through the transparisteel view port was the looming mass of a planet, pale as a wedding scarf and impossibly virgin.

Shaak Ti concentrated and opened her mouth to say something, anything...

"Why have you done this?" she asked, and it came out of her mouth as a whisper, striped of emotion like a droid's. It was a start.

Grievous turned to consider her. "I will tell you nothing, Jedi. You are to follow my command without question and without fail. That is all you need to know." And then he ignored her completely, gazing out the view port with a singularity of interest.

Anger boiled inside her, but her face wouldn't mirror her emotions, nor could she use the Force to hurl him through the transparisteel and out into space, as she desperately wanted to do. The mind control rings instantaneously fed the feeling back to her, this time through emotional means. They turned her anger into depression, her rage into melancholy, emotions deemed less damaging toward the general.

"General Grievous," she said sadly, and, because the name had no real meaning, the rings allowed her to say it normally. The cyborg general turned impatiently to glare at her.

Suddenly, she realized that her hand was stroking the metal clasp around her right lekku. Without thinking, she pulled at it.

The mind control rings instantly overrode her, shooting an electrical current through all her synapses at once, making her fall into a faint on the durasteel floor.

When Shaak Ti regained consciousness, she was startled by an extremely close view of General Grievous' death mask. She would have gasped or screamed, but was only allowed to open her black eyes wide to display her shock.

"Shaak Ti," Grievous pronounced, and the Jedi felt a jolt of alarm that such an individual would _know her name_, and keep it _in his memory_, "do not excite the mind control rings with such foolish decisions. It would be a waste if you became brain-dead."

And he stood up and turned again, his cloak hitting her face and dragging over it.

She stayed there for a few seconds, and then stood up slowly. The Magna guards were nearby, never looking at anything and hardly moving at all. The general stood in front of her with his back turned.

A battle droid approached the general, breaking the silence. "General, we have arrived at Serizad VII. Awaiting your orders."

She saw the back of his unnatural head tilt contemplatively, and the raspy voice say, "Land the fleet and engage a direct assault. Open a com-link to all ships."

Shaak Ti moved forward, not thinking specifically about what she was doing. The rings allowed her to move. The Jedi reached his side and turned, reaching out with her hand to strike at him. When her fist reached within a foot of his white cloak, the rings shorted out her mind and the Togruta woman fell into a heap on the durasteel floor once again.

The Jedi gained consciousness _again_. This time, Grievous was not looking at her. He was giving instructions to the fleet through the com connecting the ships. "...pattern aurek, then cresh, then jenth. There are no Jedi stationed on Serizad; the priority files and strategy apply to non-Jedi attack situations, as usual. Local access decisions applicable to local droid officers, large-scale judgments are to come from myself only. Understood?"

Hundreds of screens filled with the heads of battle droids nodded simultaneously. "Roger-roger," came the unemotional response, and the com-links disconnected in chorus.

Then, he turned to her again, stepping over her prone form and almost spitting with rage. "What did I just tell you, Jedi? If you do that again, I will _kill _you!"

"Yes," she croaked perfunctorily.

The eyes in the bone mask narrowed. Faster than her eyes could follow, he gripped her neck in one six-fingered hand and lifted her off the floor. "You are too useful of a tool to be stupidly wasted by your Jedi sense of righteousness. You will do as I say, and you will be silent as you do it!"

Her mouth opened, but the only sound that emerged was a keening cry, a single note that reverberated through her bones and the general's metal arm.

His eyes were yellow slits. "I will have no more from you!"

And he threw her.

She landed in a bundle near a blue, white-cloaked Magna guard, who turned mechanically to determine whether she was a threat. When the Togruta woman remained motionless, blinking away at the pain, it turned wordlessly back to its vigil.

* * *

A.N. This is a work in progress and more chapters are to come.Only review if you want to. 


	2. Battle of Serizad VII

And then...between "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith"...

Classical Conditioning  
by Great Materia Hunter Yuffie  
Chapter 2: Battle of Serizad VII

"Man's power of choice enables him to think like an angel or a devil, a king or a slave. Whatever he chooses, his mind will create and manifest."

-Frederick Bailes

She curled there, mind racing and stomach heaving for a moment before the rings robotically calmed her with a deluge of drugs and electrical impulses. Shaak Ti _forgot _for one entire blissful minute, but then she looked up and saw the droids and the Magna guards and the cloaked cyborg and then it came back in a ripping flash. She felt her memory warping like wood on a beach.

What kind of a Jedi am I? My memory...is faltering... The Force is no longer with me...

Even though she felt the tenseness in her ring-constricted throat that threatened tears, she refused to weep in front of her enemies. She struggled to her feet, brown robes spilling around her, and pressed forward until she stood before the general once again.

The Togruta woman stared at his back impassively for a moment, struggling to find an inner peace that was not forcibly induced. _I will be calm, calm..._

"What happened?" she asked, her voice a monotone that sounded alien to her.

The general turned, eyes narrowed. "What happened to **what**, Jedi?"

"My friends. The other Jedi. Are they dead or do they yet live?"

Grievous laughed, a harsh grating sound. "Tell me. Why would I answer you? Do not forget that I have complete control over you."

Her eyes narrowed; she fought against the ennui flowing through her. "You do not."

His eyes went into slits, but from anger or humor she could not tell. "But I do, Jedi." Grievous stared at her unnervingly for a moment before appearing to arrive at a decision. "Shaak Ti. Destroy that battle droid." The droid army general pointed with one long, six-fingered hand toward a thin battle droid standing guard by the door.

Shaak Ti froze.

And felt it, the mind rings compelling her. Her hands began to twitch, lifted. She saw them before her eyes, trembling with some force that was not her own mind.

"N...no," she said, blinking. She stepped forward, hands raised. The guard never had a chance. She gripped its blaster and jerked it from its metal hands, lifting the nozzle until the droid was in her sights. Without thinking, her hands pulled the trigger and the battle droid's head was no more, black tendrils of smoke curling toward the ceiling before it toppled violently over.

It was over so quickly that Shaak Ti barely had time to think. It was as if she had been completely overruled. It frightened her, but the drugs instantly calmed her. She sensed the other droids in the room looking at her and the general, metal hands hovering over emergency buttons.

"Well done, Jedi," the general said, voice so raspy that there was no way of knowing whether he was being honest or sarcastic.

"You will be very useful to us." A dark prognostication. A harsh, unreadable voice.

She turned toward him, blaster still gripped in outstretched red hands. She dropped it in front of her. "No," she replied emotionlessly, not looking at him. "I will not fight for you."

He completely ignored her, stepping forward to bark more instructions at his machinated crew. Shaak Ti stared at the blaster for a long moment before the mind rings overruled her and forced her to step in line with the Magna Guards.

Will I forever shadow this beast? Will I be forced to protect this monster and have these machines as my allies, for the rest of the war? For the rest of my life? What will become of me?

She berated herself for being so self-interested, but a minute later she could not even remember what she had been thinking about. An hour later, she was in a transport to the surface, sitting patiently between two Magna Guards, with the incident almost completely erased from her memory.

* * *

They were on the surface of Serizad VII, traveling through a white forest. Everything on Serizad was white - the rocks and earth and vegetation were all alabaster and perfect, like the maker was only thinking of one color when the planet was created. 

She walked over the soft earth unthinkingly, between the Magna guards and behind the general. Everyone creaked mechanically except for her. Her automaton companions were more than the Kaleesh warriors that Grievous pretended they were. Their torn capes were marked with the same traditional Karabbac blood markings that the Kaleesh wore; yet they were far faster and stronger than flesh and blood warriors. However, she supposed it hardly mattered who they were dressed up like as long as they got their job done and their clothing seemed to comfort the ghastly cyborg at the same time.

Her own brown Jedi robes moved familiarly around her, giving her a surreal sense that all was normal and right.

Her thoughts were becoming a little clearer as the _tanith_ wore off. Shaak Ti considered the dreadful situation.

She could not use the Force. The _tanith_ drug took care of that, as long as it lasted. She knew instinctively that the rings would prevent any aggressive Force use in case the _tanith_ ever wore off. The drugs and rings were slowly eroding her memory. Even now, it was hard to remember specifics. The mind control rings were absolutely controlling her body, releasing chemicals to change her emotions and electrical impulses to master her brain.

And as she walked, the rings were releasing pleasure chemicals. The more things she did 'correctly,' the farther she followed General Grievous without trying anything, the happier they made her feel. It was getting difficult to concentrate through the euphoria. She walked mechanically, processing the images passing through her retinas and trying desperately not to think and to concentrate on nothing.

Then they were ambushed. Even without the Force, Shaak Ti felt it coming, a black premonition sweeping toward her. Instinctively, she crouched, covering her lekku and eyes with her arms; a piercing whistle stretched overhead and exploded into the battle droids behind her, flinging her forward to land on her face. She lay there, dazed for a moment before sitting up to see with wide black eyes what was happening.

Thousands of clone troopers were spilling over the ridge, vehicles and air transports filling the sky like insects. Shaak Ti froze.

So this...this is how it feels...to see the great Army of the Republic...come down upon you. It is like a great shaking mountain, like a tremendous inferno, like a wailing wind, like you are helpless against its might.

Shaak Ti dodged to the side as a droid came down on her, rolling in the dust before coming to a fighting stance on her knees.

-GENERAL-

The urge was inescapable, originating inside her own mind.

What? No!

-GENERAL-

She was running, scooping up a blaster from the ground, shooting at the battle droids surrounding her, desperately searching for a Jedi to aid in her escape from the Separatists.

The...Separatists...?

A shock. Memory erasure.

**-GENERAL GRIEVOUS-**

What is happening to my mind?

She got off one more shot, reveling in the sight of the super battle droid exploding from the inside. Then the mind rings tripped her feet and she snapped to the ground. Shaak Ti tried to control her muscles, but could only lay there, convulsing like paper in a wind.

-FIND GENERAL GRIEVOUS-

It was impossible to ignore. It was not a voice, it was not a mere suggestion; it was a desire, it was a need, it was a _compulsion_. She needed to get up right now and find him find him _find him **find him FIND HIM!**_

****

-PROTECT GENERAL GRIEVOUS!-

NO! her mind shrieked.

The rings squeezed her lekku until she gasped with pain. Her arms and legs were thrashing, her head was smacking against the ground like she was a fish on land. More remotely, she knew she was about to die. The battle was still raging around her on the pallid battlefield, too close, too close. She was going to be destroyed.

****

-FIND GENERAL GRIEVOUS! PROTECT GENERAL GRIEVOUS!-

I WILL NOT!

Saliva spilled sticky down the side of her face, her head snapped back and hit the ground so hard that stars exploded in her vision and she tasted blood in her mouth.

I WILL NOT!

Lightning ripped through her brain. She lost consciousness.

The battle still ripped around her, explosions and blaster fire and dust spreading and tearing and discharging and red spread around the white and gray as if it were the end of the world.

A few seconds of Armageddon.

A battle droid exploded and collapsed next to her, its arm cast about her, embracing her in its non-death insentience.

Her black eyes opened. She saw gray light, white trees burning.

She did not even know to be afraid; she knew she had seen this before. There was a weight on her side. She paused, then pushed the battle droid off of her.

Why...am I here? Her first thought. A good question.

I remember... she thought suddenly, ignoring the explosions and fear. _I am here to..._

she thought suddenly, ignoring the explosions and fear. 

-FIND GENERAL GRIEVOUS-

...find General Grievous. That is why I am here. There is no other thing I have to do except to...

-PROTECT GENERAL GRIEVOUS-

...protect General Grievous. Of course.

She stood up slowly. Without thinking, she blasted a clone lieutenant in the middle of his helmet. He fell back, but she wasn't looking, rapture racing from the rings through her system. The Jedi shot again and again, turning slowly until she found General Grievous in the blaster's sights.

Shaak Ti felt, or imagined she felt, the rings hum as they prepared to shock her brain. She trembled - the rings made fear run up and down her lekku, the blood rushed from her face - and automatically turned the blaster away from Grievous, toward the clones once again. It was strangely easy to pull the trigger, and her mind seemed to shut down to a pinprick of light, that illuminated the visors of clones, that shocked her finger into squeezing.

Again and again. She kept coming back to Grievous, who was wading through the clones and mowing them down with his lightsabers like a god of death. He was too fast to be injured by the clones' blaster fire, and too cunning to be hurt by their close range weapons. Shaak Ti knew that it would be easy for her to hit him, but each time the hum of the rings discouraged her and each time she passed over his white and transient form as if he was not there.

And her mind shut down, narrowing to only two actions:

****

Find General Grievous.

Protect General Grievous.

* * *

A.N. The only reason why I finished this chapter was because my brother told me I was being dumb about it. So...all hail to my bro, who told me to just shut up and do it. And sorry it's short. Next one's coming soon. There should be 4 chapters and then it'll all be over. The whole thing's like half-written already, which is weird for me. Review if you want, don't if you don't. It's just that simple. 


	3. Master Dooku

And then...between "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith"...

Classical Conditioning  
by Great Materia Hunter Yuffie  
Chapter 3: Master Dooku

"Firstly, gradualness. About this most important condition of fruitful scientific work I can never speak without emotion. Gradualness, gradualness, gradualness."

**-Ivan Pavlov

* * *

**

The _tanith_ turned her days into streaks of light. Her memory was filled with holes. Every morning she was awakened by the sting of needles penetrating her neck and lekku as the rings injected her with _tanith_. She took small comfort in the fact that the Force still sang to her, however mournfully and however distantly.

All she knew were sights and sounds and the sensations running through her lekku; there was pure joy at following the will of the general and horror at the thought of disobedience.

They put her to dreamless sleep each night with drugs; they fed her food that tasted of ashes, her brain changing the taste to give no pleasure to her. This so that the only pleasure she had was in doing the will of her commander, General Grievous.

It became obvious to her that her memory was slowly being erased. Sometimes, she would remember in a sudden flash that she was, in fact, an enemy of the Separatists. Her eyes would widen with an instant recollection of the battle on Hypori or Geonosis or Brentaal IV. And then the recollection would simply be gone, diffused by the drugs, warped into a different past, one that justified her for fighting on the Separatists' side.

Occasionally the memory would last long enough for Shaak Ti to start to tear at her throat and lekku in a desperate struggle to remove the ever-present rings. After such incidents, General Grievous would make the rings force her into a heavy depression, even though by that time she wasn't able to remember the incident that had sparked the misery. She only knew that in some way she had failed her commander, and wept bitter tears as she followed him, hoping for his forgiveness. And, when his forgiveness eventually came, the exultation that coursed through her was all encompassing and very real. Her life was made much more bearable when Grievous would look at her and speak to her. When he gave her orders and she carried them out, it was as if her life had meaning.

It came to the point when they trusted her enough to give her back her lightsaber. The general handed it to her personally. She realized distantly that it must have been one of the lightsabers he kept on his person for his own use. Shaak Ti wondered why, out of many lightsabers to choose from, he had chosen hers. She knew better than to ask, however, and let the question flow through her mind and settle, dark and abstract, in the back of her consciousness.

* * *

"Tell me, Jedi. Am I not merciful?"

She looked up numbly. They were on yet another world in their campaign, and it was night. Stars spilled around the Magna guards and the Jedi and the cyborg general and the primitive people they were terrorizing. They stood in a shadowy ravine in the middle of a desert wasteland, on the dark side of a moon. Grievous towered over her, glaring at her less malevolently than usual. She dimly understood that he wanted something from her and followed his gesturing, alien hand to a cowering family of alien creatures, huddled together in fear. She tried to concentrate so that he would be pleased with her.

"I could exterminate them and their entire race for daring to go back on their promises to the Separatists," he continued, off-handedly. "I choose to let them live in fear of the wrath of myself and Count Dooku. Am I not merciful?"

She examined the faces of the children; strange to her but for the fear that she saw mirrored in their faces, in their weirdly faceted eyes. She recognized that as the same fear that was locked within her.

She examined the face of the general, or what passed as his face. A white mask with slits and twists forming eyes and horns and strange, alien designs. The only moving part of his face was his eyes, yellow and foreboding.

"General, you are not," she answered simply.

Grievous seemed to consider that for a moment, and then his eyes narrowed into slits. "Jedi slime!" he barked as if it were a curse. He stepped toward the nearest child and gripped it in one unfeeling hand, lifting it off the ground and high into the air.

The child, too scared to scream, merely whimpered.

And Grievous cracked its thin skull within the cage of his fist, its brain matter spilling out between his six white fingers. He let it fall to the ground where it lay, dreadfully motionless.

Even within the bands and the _tanith_, revulsion and nausea swept through her like a deluge of acid. The parents' cries reached her lekku and she flinched. Grievous was looking at her, gauging her reaction. The cyborg tilted his head, considering, and said to her and to the Magna guards, "Attack all the warriors of this species. Make them protect their homes. Let none of them survive."

Shaak Ti expelled a breath and held perfectly still, desperate to engage the Force. It eluded her, danced blue and bright around the edges, and it refused to touch her. The compulsion to do as the general commanded rushed through her, making her skin prick everywhere. She gritted her teeth, refusing to open her eyes. The compulsion peaked to a crescendo, roaring in her lekku, and Shaak Ti fainted.

When she regained consciousness, they made her help them exterminate the pathetic warriors of that backward world. She had no choice.

The mind controlling clasps made her forget that she had seen General Grievous murder a sentient alien child, but she still shivered instinctively whenever she saw his dark-stained hands, which he did not clean because he could not feel the dried black blood that still covered them. Or perhaps he simply did not care.

* * *

Shaak Ti was as unemotional and unassuming as a piece of cloth. She let her days flow through her and did not track them, because they no longer belonged to her.

One day, she woke to find a Magna guard looking at her.

Shaak Ti went completely still, waiting to see what it would do. Its dual red orbs shone through glass and reflected on the metal as it shone out and through with eerie luster. Whether it was because of the temperature, the ever-increasing amounts of drugs being deluged into her system daily, or the strangeness of meeting a non-sentient's gaze, Shaak Ti began to shiver violently.

The Magna guards were totally incapable of speech and (she had thought) of interest in anyone but the general. She was inspired by their innate devotion and had endeavored to become as dedicated as they, developing a sort of one-sided association with them. They were, after all, her only companions. Her only comrades in the battles to protect General Grievous.

Its head tilted marginally and it lifted its hand, a gesture that meant nothing to her.

"What?" she whispered, finally managing to stem her shivering.

The Magna guard gripped her wrist and lifted her bodily to her feet. She yelped unconsciously, and then shut her mouth tightly so it would not see her weakness. The Togruta woman didn't think it would harm her - on the contrary, she just did not want it to think she was weak.

"What...what do you want, droid?" she asked, not impolitely.

In answer, it led her gently and silently through the dead hallways of the _Invisible Hand_. They were hand-in-hand. Shaak Ti felt strange, like they were two children at play, or lovers joined by the handclasp. Even in the elevator, the droid still held her hand, and at length she decided that it was an efficient way to keep track of her and not a gesture of the droid's nonexistent affection. She stopped looking at its face and looked forward, no longer trying to understand.

An underlying fear pulsated within her. The Magna guard was acting peculiar. Was this strange behavior because the general was in danger? If he was, then why wasn't the alarm sounding?

They came to an extremely large metal room - the docking bay. And there was General Grievous, she was relieved to see, with three more Magna guards and a flesh-and-blood man standing beside him. Here, the droid released her hand. Shaak Ti rubbed it with her fingers; the Magna guard's grip had been rather _methodical._

Another moment passed, and Shaak Ti took the opportunity to examine the man, the only other being in the room not made out of metal. Somewhere in the back of her mind, the Togruta woman knew his name and his face, but she could not think of who it was. There was a blank in her memory where his voice, his relationship to her was supposed to be.

Shaak Ti held her peace, standing quietly, but not as quietly as her Magna guard companions.

The man had a gray beard and wore dark red, with a half-cloak spread down his back. He was speaking to the general. If he noticed her presence, he did not show it in any way.

"...with the Republic," he was saying. "It is rather tiring, but we must persevere."

Then the general began to speak, and Shaak Ti listened intently to his strange, raspy voice. "And the other Jedi?"

The Togruta woman shifted in her sea of brown robes and watched him turn slightly to her, indicating her absently.

"Being taken care of," the man said, sparing Shaak Ti a brief glance. "They are well in hand. The techniques that my master prescribed have all worked with," here he barked a laugh, "alacrity. If we had known it would be this simple to enslave the Jedi...why, I am surprised it had not been done, years ago." He trailed off, rubbing his goatee with one hand and finally looking at her, up and down.

Shaak Ti felt a thrill run through her, and a line appeared in the space between her eyebrows. This man...was _familiar_ to her...

The rings came to life with a hum. Well acclimated to the sensitive instruments, she let the thought roll through her and away to be lost in the shadows of her mind.

"She is fully under the control of the rings," General Grievous said, gesticulating between the caped man and the captive Jedi. He hunched over under his cloak and stepped back so the man could have an unimpeded view of her. "It is probable that she does not have any idea who you are." His laughter was malicious.

The rings were having trouble with this conversation, humming as if they were preparing to shock through her synapses at any moment...

Reflexively, she tried to meditate, not knowing why or where she had learned the skill, and feeling little peace from her attempt at it.

The man stroked his goatee once, then twice. His hand fell away. "Excellent."

"How many does this make...? Fourteen Jedi captured?" The question came from the General, in a surprisingly deferential voice.

The man nodded. "Soon to be more, after some more of the inner-rim planets are taken. Some have capitulated to the Dark Side. With the masters, we may have to be content with subjugation..." he motioned with one hand toward his throat to indicate captivity. "Overall, a very useful idea. The master has finally started the true war against the Jedi."

Her vision trailed lazily over his figure, trying not to excite the rings. Unfortunately for her, she caught sight of a weapon at his side, a _lightsaber_, a strangely curled one with black and white bands...

She remembered his name in a terrific rush, screeching it out: "Master _Dooku_!"

And then fainted in a dead heap on the durasteel, rings so overset that they _sparked_.

* * *

A.N. I apologize for the wait; that Count Dooku part was...appallingly hard to write. Hopefully, the next chapter will end it. Uh, kudos to whoever kept bugging me to update, cause it worked, ya jerks. . 


	4. Forest Battle and Izvoshra Vision

And then...between "Attack of the Clones" and "Revenge of the Sith"...

"Classical Conditioning"  
by Vestergaard  
Chapter 4: Forest Battle and _Izvoshra_ Vision

"Every heart has its secret sorrows which the world knows not  
and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."

**-Henry Wadsworth Longfellow**

(_Holonet broadcast blurb, Tapani Day special_)

"**JEDI MASTERS TARGETED, CAPTURED"**

_**Coruscant - **Separatist forces, led by the brutal cyborg General Grievous, have targeted and captured prominent members of the ancient Jedi Order. The Jedi are well-known as leadership in our own Republic army in the Republic/Separatist conflict. As well as nine other Jedi Knights, six Jedi Generals have been captured, including Gen. Ki-Adi Mundi, Gen. Shaak Ti and Gen. Aayla Secura. A full list is available on Holo-main. No ransom demands have been delivered, but feeds through the Holonet from live and unconfirmed sources reveal that these brave Jedi are still alive and being held in enemy hands._

* * *

She eventually forgot who and what she was. 

The Jedi ingrain their padawans with a deep sense of obedience, and a loyalty that is unquestioning.

It was merely a new kind of religion. The transition was almost tranquil.

* * *

The Jedi Master Shaak Ti stood on the branch of an enormous tree; her montrals sensed an intelligent life-form move and come to a stop far beneath her on the forest floor. She leaned a few inches to her right and calmly looked down fifty yards at him - a red-striped clone trooper. After a moment, he leaned back against the trunk and adjusted his DC-17 rifle to rest with its butt on the ground, nodding slightly to himself in a bored way. 

Shaak Ti silently stepped to her right, landing on a lower branch with a slight sound, immediately dropping down to the next and the next until she soundlessly landed just to the side of the trooper, and a little above him.

The Jedi Master slowly grasped her lightsaber and drew it out, holding it steady until it pointed at the back of the trooper's helmet, wavering slightly a foot away.

The tiniest of hesitations, and then -

She activated the lightsaber; instantaneously, the blade sprung out and through the unfortunate trooper's helmet, sticking out the other side slightly like a magic trick manipulating light -

and then deactivated it, calmly hooking it back on her belt.

The trooper stood in place for an infinite moment. A second passed and the rifle fell, then the trooper followed with a swooping crash.

She barely noticed the smell of cauterized brain matter in her haste to complete the next part of her assignment. As it is, she merely picked up the enormous rifle and brought it with her to the rendezvous point without stopping to glance at the crumpled soldier.

Shaak Ti heard and sensed nothing as she moved from tree to tree.

Suddenly, she halted. After a tense moment, she slung the blaster rifle down to waist level and pulled the trigger. A single pulse shot out into the trees. The Jedi continued; after two hundred meters she passed the clone trooper she had shot, lying motionless on the ground.

She sensed Grievous ahead, and then saw him. By his body language he was waiting impatiently, clicking his many-fingered hand on his metal thigh. When he heard her, he turned toward her. "Well, Jedi?"

"The sentries are dead, general."

He only nodded dismissively, as if he had expected nothing less. Facing a battle droid, he relayed instructions. "Move the contingent of super battle droids into position directly southeast of the walls, to wait for my signal to attack."

Then they moved as a group through the forest, Shaak Ti making her way in the arms of the trees overhead, never losing sight of them. The main building came in sight, a high-walled, sprawling structure sporting laser canons and many clone troopers manning the walls.

The super battle droids waited just out of range, in a mass of metal like the waves of the sea.

She brought her lightsaber to hand, not examining the reasons why storming this fort was necessary, just as she never questioned anything the general did anymore. If it was important to General Grievous, then it was automatically vital to Shaak Ti. Questions hurt; she knew this subconsciously.

General Grievous raised his right fist, and there was a creaking as all droids in sight arrayed their weaponry at the buildings and enemy troops.

The soldiers near the canons only shifted slightly, as if uneasy.

Grievous' fist fell; ten thousand blasts from ten thousand droids that found targets almost simultaneously. The noise was deafening.

The general was already charging the canons, and Shaak Ti leapt down to join the guards streaming after him in an effort to keep up.

He leapt thirty feet and clung to the metal with his claws, bringing himself inexorably upward. Shaak Ti followed suit, using the Force to bind her hands and feet to the metal just long enough to support her weight. The MagnaGuards followed behind her. A beam cannon aimed quickly at General Grievous and shot, but the cyborg dodged it almost lazily. The beam caught the cloak of a guard beneath her; she could hear the thing's processors whirling damage reports to itself even over the roar of battle.

The clone troopers started firing at General Grievous and his personal followers almost exclusively, trying to force them back down the walls. The general's hands split and reflected the blows with two lightsabers from his belt; the other two hands still climbed, almost without pause, except for when he dodged the larger canons.

Even Shaak Ti could not keep up with him, not having four hands to work with. She clung to the wall like the MagnaGuards, reflecting the beams back toward the clone troopers, trying to dispatch the careless ones.

Largely unhindered by their efforts, Grievous reached the top of the wall, where the climbing hands reached for lightsabers of their own. Three green and one blue, she counted, before he started getting hard to follow with even her eyes. The clone troopers started firing frantically at Grievous, and Shaak Ti and the guards reached the top in time to see him impale the last of the men and throw him bodily off the wall.

Each MagnaGuard destroyed a canon or two until they fell silent, and the only sound was the terrific chorus of blaster noise coming from the super battle droid army below them, who would not stop firing until ordered or until the wall was gone.

Grievous leapt off the wall and into the fort, and they followed his lead, striking down the few clone troopers between them and the nearest building. Shaak Ti Forced the door open. The hallway was dark, and led to a room with a row of computers and a small man who was standing with his back toward them.

"I knew you would come. I should have destroyed it before you got here, but I thought we could hold you off."

With his clanking gait, Grievous moved forward and spread the blue lightsaber near the man's ear. "Where is it? Surrender it or die."

The man sighed. "You mean, 'Surrender it _and_ die,' don't you, general?" He sighed again, with inexpressible emotion . "No matter. It's here." He held up one hand, with a data file in it.

Without another word, the General's lightsaber flew through the man's neck, severing his head. One of his hands caught the metal rectangle before it hit the ground. He threw it to a MagnaGuard. "Analyze."

They waited a few moments in silence as the MagnaGuard completed the task; the weapons in the room were extinguished while they waited. The decapitated head seemed to stare at her, still rolling back and forth on the ground. It finally stopped, as if coming to a decision.

Then everything suddenly froze in her mind. It happened by instinct; she felt the Force move through the MagnaGuard to her left, knew instinctively that something was wrong with it, knew that it aimed for the General's head when it thrust with its spear...

She blocked it with her lightsaber, then sliced the droid's arm off.

"What...?" Grievous muttered, two of his lightsabers already lit.

Shaak Ti twirled, knowing the other MagnaGuards had the same defect. It was so sudden, it had to be... "The file." It must have been a trap, a debilitating virus, transferred from one guard to another, through their Holonet connections.

But she knew their weaknesses, from working with them. She cut down the one with its cape covered in the guts of a leviathan that had attacked them, months before. Its red eyes seemed to accuse her as they dimmed and its processors died.

She felt Grievous working to destroy his own bodyguards beside her, his strokes furious and regretful.

After long minutes, Shaak Ti disarmed, then dismembered the last, the one that had held her hand so closely, like a lover. Shaak Ti felt like she was choking on bile, and covered her face with her hands. It had been like killing herself.

With a roar of rage, Grievous went back to the body of the man and mutilated it with his sabers, then flung it to a corner. He stood, breathing heavily like distant thunderclaps. Shaak Ti started to cry, her feelings overwhelming her.

Slowly, the general turned to face her, extinguishing his weapons and placing them heavily into the pockets in his cloak. "So the Republic is concentrating on killing me," he muttered. "And the data is not here."

"They're dead," she choked. "All of my friends." The droids were scattered across the room, metal parts everywhere.

Grievous considered her seriously for a long minute. "They were not your friends. They were droids."

"No," she said, wiping her eyes. "No, they were _me_."

He sounded as if he would have been smiling; somewhere under his armor, some part of him was secretly amused. "Very true. You are even more a droid, in some ways." He blinked, as if he thought of something. "Is that what you think you are? A droid, like these?"

She nodded, hesitantly. "My...brothers," she answered, gesturing sadly.

Grievous laughed loudly. "Then the transformation is complete. A droid for a Jedi. You have finally learned to be completely obedient, since you have come to be with me."

Through her pain and loss, Shaak Ti felt pure pleasure at his praise.

* * *

Weeks later, she was invited to his sleeping chambers aboard the _Invisible Hand_. The durasteel parted like waters and closed behind her gently. She stood where she was for a long moment, adjusting to the lack of light in General Grievous' quarters. Vibrations struck her montrals, roughly mapping her surroundings, and she stepped forward. 

"I had a vision."

She blinked and turned toward the voice. Shaak Ti could sense his outline and reflections on the metal plating covering his torso. "A vision?"

A slight shift in the shadows. "Such a thing should be kept sacred...however, my _Izvoshra_..."

Her Jedi intuition told her what he meant by that word - his elite protectors, from before his transformation. The ones he had replaced with droids.

"My _Izvoshra_...are dead, long ago." There was a long pause; Shaak Ti waited uncomfortably. "Master Jedi, hear my vision and know it is sacred."

Automatically, as if she were before Yoda, she knelt a meditative position. She bowed from the waist and closed her eyes.

General Grievous made a sound that was almost a bark, and then began. "In my dream there is a great, barren mountain of black surrounded by ocean on all sides. Stars reflect their light on the face of the ocean. Eight red moons and a behemoth sun rise and set overhead; time passes."

A terrible coughing fit gripped him, and for a few moments it was all he could do just to breathe. When he continued, it was so weakly that she automatically used the Force to understand it better.

"The eight red moons disappear, exploding one by one. The ocean recedes and the stars dim until there is nothing left. Nothing but the barren mountain, nothing but the bleak sun."

Shaak Ti felt a twitch in her cheek suddenly spasm, felt his voice draw her into him.

"In my sacred dream," he continued, voice like soft violence, "I am the mountain. My honorable wives are the receding oceans, my children are the vanishing stars, my trusted guards are the eight moons."

She held her breath, not knowing why.

"And Shaak Ti is the sun."

Her breath expelled all at once, like a whistle blowing.

Grievous nodded and made a motion with his hand. The lights suddenly blared into existence, and the doors slid open to allow the MagnaGuards, rebuilt from the previous battle, into the room. The general stood over her, the insentient guards making a tenuous circle around them.

"This is an honor that you almost do not deserve," General Grievous said slowly, as if her was still convincing herself.

Shaak Ti blinked lethargically and swallowed, coming back to herself, or, as much as she ever did anymore. A MagnaGuard to her left creaked as it shifted its grip on the pole arm in its grip, and she realized Grievous was talking to her.

"What honor?" she asked without inflection.

In answer, he reached to her neck and pressed the ring at her throat, which beeped in response. A layer of the ring hissed and broke off, landing on the floor with a metallic clang.

"The honor of becoming one of my _Izvoshra._" At this one of the silent guards draped her with a sort of cloth.

"What is...?" she pulled the white edge toward her; the hem was frayed and marked with red, like the MagnaGuards' own cloaks.

And then she knew what it meant, him giving this to her. It was not a test, nor a trap, nor the motion of a mentor to trick his student into making a mistake.

It was religious, and it was personal, like a hand passing over the face of a child. She could feel tears at the corners of her eyes, feeling them surrounding her, welcoming her, the cloak warming her. Her deepest heart felt it was the same as another time, when she had been circled by the wisest of men and welcomed there...but then the memory was gone, and she knew that she was where she belonged.

She had been adopted by her family, at last.

Overwhelmed, she cried when they marked her cheeks with blood, their bony fingers tracing her face with tradition, strangely gentle, and expressed to her, _Welcome, welcome, welcome_.

* * *

A.N. I am so sorry, but it will be a few chapters longer. Thanks for your patience. 


End file.
